


sugar burn

by butbythegrace



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chronic Pain, Friends With Benefits, Hair-pulling, M/M, Marijuana, Massage, Praise Kink, Professor Roy, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Content, Student Ed, not in a professor/student capacity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22021078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butbythegrace/pseuds/butbythegrace
Summary: Watching Ed take his first hit is like watching the sun come out.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 37
Kudos: 510
Collections: FMA Gift Exchange 2019





	sugar burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teandfailure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teandfailure/gifts).



> I yelled when I got your name in my email omg. Thank you for encouraging me to participate in this gift exchange in the first place. Happy new year my friend, I hope you like this <3

It’s Roy’s favorite kind of weather - the day after a storm.

Dark clouds rush across a sunny sky and wind whips through the trees and at his back as he walks down the sidewalk of the quiet neighborhood near campus where he lives. He only had one class today - so obscenely early his students were half awake at best - and it’s barely past ten in the morning as he walks up the porch steps of the little bungalow and opens the front door. The house smells like rising dough and weed, and it’s almost enough to make this still strange place feel like home.

Roy kicks off his shoes in the foyer, briefly wonders if Ling is making bread or pretzels, then decides it doesn’t matter. There is a far more pressing concern, and that's whether or not he made enough to share.

Roy pads down the hall, waving as he walks past the great room. Ling makes some sort of vague noise in greeting, his fingers nimbly commanding the game controller in his hands, his eyes glued to the kind-of obnoxiously sized TV screen that goes fittingly with the sort-of obnoxious newness of the entire house. They moved in as soon as the renovation was complete and have only lived here for six months, so everything is still shiny and sterile and often leaves Roy feeling out of place. Ling is good company though, and makes great food that Roy might be hoping to get in on, so he decides to drop his bag in his room and join him on the couch.

That plan dissipates when he opens his bedroom door and finds Ed curled up on his bed.

Roy's heart does a little stutter at the sight. Ed’s hair is loose, bright and wavy against the charcoal comforter, and there are dark circles under his eyes. Roy hasn’t seen him in several days and coming home to him is a surprise, but a pleasant one. He doesn’t stir at Roy’s arrival, or when he closes the door behind him.

Roy ducks under the strap of his messenger bag and sets it on his desk chair, then unbuckles his belt and steps out of his slacks. He puts on the sweatpants he’d discarded on the floor that morning, leaves his sweater on, then crosses the room to carefully sit down at the edge of his bed. Even in sleep, Ed looks tense.

Roy brushes his hair behind his ear and the little black skull and crossbones earring underneath glints in the filtered light of the window blinds. Ed makes a cat-like activation sound at his touch, body shifting as he stretches, his yawn melting into a hum. “Will you pack a bowl for me?” he asks, not even bothering to open his eyes, which is a shame. They nearly stop Roy’s heart sometimes.

“Have you been waiting for me to get here just for that?” Roy asks, dappling his fingers down Ed’s jaw.

Ed grabs his hand and places it on the knob to the top drawer of the bedside table. He cracks an eye open, revealing a stiletto of gold, and says, “It’s not gonna pack itself.”

Ed's touch makes goosebumps ripple up Roy’s arm, and he itches to bring that hand to his mouth - to taste Ed's skin and suck on his fingers - but instead dutifully takes the hint and opens the drawer. From there he procures his supplies, and a smile pulls at his mouth as he arranges them on the tabletop.

“Ling would have done it for you,” he says, only semi-serious, though they both know Ling _would_ have done it, no questions asked. He’s the reason Ed got into weed to begin with, and had been Ed's designated bowl packer before Roy had stolen his job, so he’s already familiar with the fact that Ed never does it himself.

Ed’s eyes open the rest of the way and he blinks blearily, adorably sleepy, as if even the filtered sunlight is too bright for him. “Eh. He looked busy. I don’t think he even noticed me come in, to be honest.”

Roy believes it. There are many things Ling tends to either not notice or have a severely delayed reaction to, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Ling hadn’t actually noticed him come home, either.

Roy unscrews the mason jar and taps a single bud out onto the lid. “Why don’t you just let me teach you? There’s nothing to it.”

Ed wrinkles his nose at the suggestion of Doing It Himself. He lives with his father and Roy thinks that must be why he doesn’t usually smoke, preferring the edibles Ling makes for him. He’s never bothered to learn how to pack a bowl and it’s quite possible he never will because he is absolutely spoiled and it’s every bit Roy’s fault.

Well- maybe a little bit Ling’s. Definitely mostly Roy’s, though. He's made his peace with it.

“But it’s so _good_ when you do it,” Ed says, his tone less whine and more worship, which Roy has to admit is quite nice to be on the receiving end of.

“I’m starting to think it’s the only reason you like me,” Roy says as he meticulously picks the bud apart.

“Plenty of people can pack a bowl, but none of them fuck me as well as you do, so don’t worry, your position is safe.”

Roy tries to keep a straight face and steady hands at the thought of people other than him fucking Ed. “My position?”

“Yeah,” Ed says, rolling onto his stomach so he can watch Roy work, bright eyes tracking his every movement. One would think he’s watched it happen enough times to feel comfortable doing it himself, but they’d be wrong. “Smoking hot professor who packs good bowls and gives the best orgasms.”

“How concise,” Roy deadpans as he starts to pack the bud in.

Ed needles his thigh with an elbow. “Shut up and finish that or I’ll make myself concise.”

On any other day Roy would have taken the bait for a short joke, but Ed is in a bit of a mood, stiff and on edge, and Roy is fairly certain it’s because he’s in pain. He gets achy when it rains, and for the day or so that follows, and it had stormed into the early hours of the morning. He’d probably lost sleep over it, too.

Ed pushes himself to a crossed-legged sit, swimming in a too-big hoodie that sparks a strange sense of possessiveness in Roy, prompting him to wonder if it belongs to someone else. Given the uniqueness of Ed’s entire wardrobe it’s hard to say for sure, and seeing as they’d agreed from the beginning that neither of them were looking for anything serious, there's no reason for him to be reacting this way to something that's absolutely none of his business to begin with.

Ed struggles to find his hands in the oversized sleeves - which is cute as fuck even though Roy is embarrassed for just thinking those exact words - but eventually he manages to get them halfway up his arms. He reaches out and makes a grabby hand at the bowl Roy is still holding, and Roy hands it over along with a lighter.

Watching Ed take his first hit is like watching the sun come out. The hard lines of his face relax with the inhale, and his shoulders sag as the tension leaves him with the smoke from his lungs. His relief briefly leaves him looking very vulnerable and every bit of the twenty years he is. Roy just wants to wrap him up in his own too-big hoodies and pack him as many bowls as he wants and keep life from sinking its teeth into him any deeper than it already has.

Ed takes a few follow up breaths and smacks his lips. “It’s sweet. What is it?” he asks, as he does every time Roy gets something new.

“Girl Scout Cookies,” Roy immediately answers, because he knows Ed will ask and thus always makes it a point to find out.

Ed snorts. “Clever.” He takes another hit, holds it while looking thoughtful, and blows it toward the ceiling before offering Roy the bowl. “Can you imagine? Them earning weed-related badges?”

“Not hardly.”

Ed starts to point at various places on his chest, as if pointing out patches on a sash. “This is my Starting Seeds badge, and my Making Munchies badge, and I got this one for selling an entire O at once-”

Roy chokes on his hit, coughing into his elbow.

“Troop 420 would win every year.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Do you think they'd have turf wars? During, y’know.” Ed lowers his voice ominously. “ _Cookie_ season?”

Roy pushes the bowl back into his hands in hopes to shut him up long enough to derail him. “No class?” he asks as Ed takes his hit, not so much questioning whether or not Ed has classes that day because Roy knows he does, but that he clearly is not going to go, which is out of the norm for him.

Ed rolls his eyes and exhales. “Had a rough night.”

“I can tell.”

“Damn,” Ed says, looking at Roy with an expression so drained Roy immediately feels guilty. “Tell me more about how I look like shit.”

Roy stops himself before he can say something as foolish and dramatic as ‘you always look gorgeous’. This thing that they have – whatever it is, because at this point Roy’s pretty sure it’s not quite the friendship they’d initially agreed upon – is safe, and relatively uncomplicated despite the fact that neither of them are, and saying something like _that_ is edging upon precarious, however true it may be. Chances are Ed would probably just think he was poking fun at him and get pissed off.

“I can see it here,” Roy says instead, placing a hand at the junction between Ed’s neck and shoulder, the side with the automail. The tension radiates into his palm and Ed winces. “And here,” he says, touching Ed’s hand, the one that’s been absentmindedly rubbing his thigh right above the port.

Ed’s eyes narrow, but he makes no move to shift away from Roy’s touch. “You been studying me or something? That's kinda creepy, Mustang.”

“Skipping class, asking for a smoke first thing? You gave yourself away.” Roy gives him a slow once over, his lips quirking in a grin. “If you’re offering though-”

“Shut up,” Ed says, his cheeks flushed as he sets the bowl on top of the hand Roy has on his leg.

Roy takes it, tamps the ash down with the bottom of the lighter, and lights it. Despite Ed’s annoyance, he still allows Roy to lean in and press their mouths together, if only so he can suck the smoke from Roy’s lungs. The combination of Ed’s hot mouth and the theft of his own breath leaves Roy a little light-headed. They don’t do that too often outside of sex - kiss, that is – and he finds himself thinking about it more and more, mostly because the urge has started to hit him often and he’s had to get quite careful about it.

He’s brought back to the present by Ed taking the bowl from his hands. Ed tries to light it but makes a face. “Cashed,” he says. He winces when he hands the spent piece to Roy, then rubs at his shoulder.

Roy takes notice. “Do you want me to pack another one?” he offers.

Ed drops his hand as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t be. He shakes his head. “Nah. I’m just- y’know. I ate something about an hour ago so it should be kicking in soon. I’ll be good by then. Thanks for offering though. And for the smoke. Takes the edge off.”

Roy sets the bowl on the bedside table and reaches out to gently touch Ed's thigh. “Would you like me to rub these out in the meantime?” he asks. He knows it won’t be much help for that bone-deep ache a port can cause, but automail is rough on the rest of the body in general and those aches tend to get a little louder when the ports act up.

Ed’s cheeks darken as he stares down at Roy’s hand. “Y’don’t have to.”

“I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t want to,” Roy says.

Ed’s eyes flick up to his. He looks hesitant, torn somewhere between temptation and suspicion. He settles on suspicion, and his eyes narrow. “You just want to grope my ass.”

Roy smirks. “I’m not going to deny it’s a perk.”

Ed studies him for a moment longer, and then sighs, as if what Roy is offering requires a great deal of effort on his behalf. He flops back onto the bed, shimmies around to get comfortable, then closes his eyes and lays there for awhile, and Roy allows him some space and quiet as he settles into his high.

“Well,” Ed says eventually, eyes still closed. “I’m not gonna stop you.”

Roy grins and tugs at the string of his hoodie. “Arms up.”

Ed raises his arms above his head and arches his back as Roy grabs the hem of the rust-colored sweatshirt, pulling it up and over his head and throwing it to the floor with a sense of satisfaction. He peels off the black tank top underneath in the same fashion, revealing a body of toned muscle, scarred skin, and steel.

Ed has never been shy about his automail or his scars, and Roy envies him of that confidence, to a degree. He knows it isn’t as easy as Ed makes it look. This level of indifference is a combination of his trust in Roy and having already made some sort of peace with something horrific - something which Roy has only the barest of details of. Ed's automail was the end result of a car accident, and he used just one word to sum up his stomach and back: rebar. It hurt to even think about.

Whatever Ed had gone through made the burn streaking across Roy's side seem woefully insignificant, but Ed doesn't see it that way. He's always considered them equals in the department of misery, and Roy thinks that in many ways, he's correct. They'd both been dealt a shit hand. They'd both bled, and fought, and lost, and there's no need to wallow in the details. They’d just- quietly understood and accepted one another as-is, though for Roy the thought of telling Ed the story behind his scar isn’t nearly as scary as it used to be.

Ed shimmies his way out of his black joggers and boxers and kicks them to the floor. He catches Roy staring, smiles, and stretches out slow, purposeful in his languidity, giving Roy’s eyes ample opportunity to map out every visible bit of him, all the dips of muscle and angles of bone, downy blond hair sprinkled on his arm and leg and thicker down his belly, cock laying soft against his thigh. He takes his time rolling over and settling onto his stomach, then pillows his head on his arms and looks at Roy expectantly.

Roy digs around in the bedside drawer and comes up with the bottle of oil, then steps up onto the bed with his knees and settles into a straddle over Ed's hips. He runs his fingers through Ed’s hair, carefully combing it over his automail shoulder and out of harm's way, then dribbles some oil onto his palm and rubs his hands together to warm it. He gently spreads it over Ed’s flesh shoulder, pulling the slick down his back and over the swathe of scar tissue that, like Roy's own, takes up a decent portion of his left side. Ed’s clearly isn’t a burn though, nor does it continuously curve from front to back. Even before Ed had told him what had caused it, Roy thought it looked alarmingly like he'd been pierced clean through.

Roy pushes his hands back up and around the shoulder blade appointed with the task of carrying the automail. He gently traces the scar tissue bordering the metal plate and tries not to think about how lucky they both are to be here at all, let alone together, in this moment and all of the ones they’ve already shared. Instead he just tries to be a guy who is a little bit stoned, touching the rather nice body of a rather nice person who is more stoned than he is, by quite a bit at this point, probably, and wills his anxious brain to shut the fuck up and live in the now.

He focuses on the heat emanating from Ed’s sore muscles as he gently works his fingers into the knots surrounding his shoulder blades. The automail is heavy and a constant uneven pull on his spine, like it stretches the surrounding muscles out to the point they tangle and knot and cause him an unfair amount of pain.

Unfair isn't a severe enough term. He went through hell to need the automail, then to get the automail, and the fact that he continues to suffer for it makes something dark bloom in the depths of Roy's chest. Despite the glaring unfairness of it all, he's never heard Ed directly complain about his automail. Maybe the aches and pains, but not the automail. Not once.

Ed makes an array of beautiful sounds in response to the push and pull of Roy's touch, soft sighs and punched little moans that Roy can’t claim leave him unaffected. Still, he doesn’t let the heat pooling in his belly distract him from the task he’d set out to do. He kneads his knuckles into the sides of Ed’s neck, and gently counts the knobs of his spine with his fingertips, and sweeps his hands down Ed’s lower back, all while trying not think about how he's sitting on Ed's ass, and how nice and naked of an ass it is, and that it inexplicably gets even nicer when it's in the vicinity of Roy's face or fingers or dick.

Ed’s suggestive noises get a bit more difficult to ignore when they’re accompanied by the occasional suggestive sway of his hips under Roy’s weight. As tempting as it is to grab them and grind against him, Roy won’t allow himself to be so assumptive. It’s very possible Ed is innocently trying to get comfortable, that Roy’s weight is putting too much pressure on his lower back, and Roy doesn’t want to come off like an asshole who expects sex in exchange for doing something nice. He's barely done anything of merit to Ed's back and hasn’t even gotten close to starting on his leg yet.

Roy scoots back so he’s straddling Ed’s thighs, moving his lower half away from Ed's body, and then starts to press his hands into Ed’s lower back, rolling his thumbs over the two little dimples above his hips that Roy has definitely made a point to taste on more than one occasion. His mouth waters a bit at the thought, and he swallows heavily. He truly hadn’t offered a massage in hopes of getting anything out of it for himself; to just be allowed to wring whatever discomfort he could out of Ed’s body was enough. But with his hands bracketing Ed’s hips, every little shift and roll of them rocking into his palms, it’s getting harder for Roy to deny that their movements are anything less than purposeful and insistent.

Roy allows his hands to drift down and cup Ed's ass, then hazards a glance at the visible half of the blond's face. His lips are parted, a blush dusting his cheek and nose, and his hand clutches at the comforter. Roy trails an experimental finger up the crack of his ass. Ed shudders and whimpers and grips the bed just a little bit tighter, and it’s all the permission Roy needs for his resolve to fold.

He grabs Ed's hips firmly and grinds against him, biting his lip at the sudden spark of pleasure that curls through his body like smoke born from a fire Ed is to blame for starting.

“Fuck,” Ed breathes, bracing himself on his elbows so he can push back against Roy's crotch. “Took you long enough.”

“You could have said something,” Roy points out. The rough feeling of his boxers and pajamas against his aching dick is just tragic when Ed's ass is _right there._

"Did I really need to spell it out?"

"Yes." Roy sits back on his calves and grabs one of Ed's ass cheeks. "How am I ever supposed to know what you want, if you don't tell me?"

"I've told you things," Ed says, which is true.

"But not many things," Roy says, which is also true. They've only be doing this for a couple of months and there are still a lot of unknowns between them.

Ed has just started to reply with something snarky and Roy’s just brought his fingers to his mouth when the bedroom door suddenly swings open. Both his and Ed’s heads swivel to stare in wide-eyed shock at Ling, who’s standing in the doorway while obliviously staring down at the phone in his hands and typing away at it.

“Hey Roy, your boyfriend is h-” Ling stops both talking and typing when he finally looks up and takes in the scene before him. "Oh," he says. "I guess you know that already.”

It’s a very dramatic example of Ling’s severely delayed reaction time, but it could have been worse, Roy supposes. Even for Ed, who from Roy’s vantage point doesn’t even look embarrassed, just a little disoriented and amused.

“Will you _please_ learn how to knock?” Roy asks in irritation, though the frustration is more aimed at himself for not locking the door in the first place. He still can't believe he's back to needing to worry about it at this point in his life. Sometimes he really, really misses living alone.

“I swear I had something else to tell you,” Ling says. Then he just stands there to think on it, like Ed isn’t laid out naked and Roy doesn’t look like he’s about to go two fingers deep in his ass. 

“Can you maybe…tell me with the door shut?” Roy suggests, following that up with, “And you on the other side of it?” because sometimes when it comes to Ling – and especially when Ling is stoned, which is a lot of the time – it’s best to be highly specific.

Ling’s eyes widen and he snaps his fingers. “Oh! I made pizza,” he announces, as if that’s an easy thing to forget in the ten seconds it takes to get from the kitchen to Roy’s room. “As in multiple. They’ll be ready in 15.”

“Get out!”

“Right, my bad,” Ling says, waving him off. “I’m gonna go- put on some headphones. Forget I was even here. Don’t forget about the pizza though.” He finally, mercifully shuts the door. “And wash your hands before you eat!” he yells through it.

A momentary silence follows, during which Roy assesses his strange mixture of irritation, embarrassment, and adrenaline. Despite having been caught with his naked ass on display, Ed laughs into his arm. “Boyfriend, huh?”

“Ling thought I was a prostitute for the first month we lived together,” Roy reminds him. “Ling is an idiot.”

Moment likely ruined, Roy settles back into his task, returning to working his fingers around the bones of Ed’s hips. Ed has other ideas. He reaches over to open Roy’s bedside drawer, roots around a bit, then tosses a condom over his shoulder. It lands, quite artfully and incredibly conveniently, right next to Roy’s knee, and his soul jumps in some sort of Pavlovian response at the sight.

“An idiot you choose to live with,” Ed says.

“His father and my aunt have business ties,” Roy says as he puts himself between Ed's legs. “It’s not like I found him on Craigslist.” He quickly discards his own clothes and slaps his hand around the sheets for the bottle of oil. He wastes no time slicking up his fingers, sliding two in right off the bat because he knows that’s how Ed likes it.

Ed groans appreciatively, his hips twitching back against Roy’s hand. "You should just stick to the Craigslist story. It's funnier."

"I'll keep that in mind."

“Isn’t it weird living with a student?” Ed asks, his hand tightening in the comforter as Roy begins to finger him open. It should probably be weird to hold an unrelated conversation during sex, but with Ed it isn’t. A couple weeks ago they had a full-fledged science-based argument with Ed bent over the desk, Roy behind him and a textbook open in front of him, and it will forever remain one of the weirdest, hottest things Roy has ever done.

“It’s kind of like living with a younger cousin whose existence I was only vaguely aware of previously,” Roy says. “And since he’s in culinary school, I’m not worried about him ever being one of my students.”

“Oh so you won’t live with people you teach, only fuck them,” Ed says brattily.

“In my defense,” Roy purrs as he works a third finger into him, “I am no longer your professor.”

Not to mention they hadn’t been doing this – or anything like it – at any point in their short-lived professional relationship. Roy feels weird just thinking about he and Ed in that sort of capacity. When they come together as the people underneath their roles and ages, they’re really not as different as they sound on paper. Here they are just Roy and Ed, two people who appreciate weed and science and sex, and sometimes all three at the same time.

“Getting off on a technicality," Ed says, his voice stilted and reedy as he adjusts to the addition.

“Which is not the only way I’m getting off today,” Roy says, and curls his fingers with savage accuracy, sending Ed’s back into a sway as a cry catches itself in his throat.

“So you think,” he gasps, wiggling his hips against Roy’s hand. “Keep doing that and you’ll be changing this ruined cover while I watch, ’cause if you think I’m helping after-”

Roy gives him several more in measured succession, because he doesn't really care about the duvet and it’s fun to watch Ed's clinquant body writhe against a dark backdrop, to hear the increasingly desperate, pretty little noises he tries and fails not to make. Sometimes he’s all talk and impatience, but Roy can feel his body start to rhythmically clench in warning.

“I’m not kidding you asshole,” Ed moans.

Roy slips his fingers free and grabs a handful of his ass. "Are you good?"

"Was it not clear that I almost just came on your fingers?"

"I'll be taking that as a yes," Roy says, then leans forward to slide his dick up the crack of Ed's ass, and Ed makes a deliciously startled sound in response as it teases over his hole.

"You'd fuckin' better," Ed says, voice just shy of shaking.

The weed makes it all feel slower, and _deeper_ , somehow, like everything they do carries more weight to it. There's fumbling for the condom, flecks of oil on Ed's back and over-the-shoulder kisses, and Roy presses his forehead to the back of Ed's skull as he presses his cock against him, and then pushes in.

Ed squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth and breathes when Roy reminds him to, his hands pulling at the comforter as Roy takes his time giving him his cock. Roy doesn't want to hurt him any more than he wants to rush this; not the feeling of sliding into Ed's incredible, tight heat, nor any part that comes after.

Roy curses and tries to steady his breathing when his hips finally press flush against Ed's ass, overwhelmed by the feeling of bottoming out and knowing that it's Ed's body locked around his, Ed chipping away at his control, and Ed who needs his comforting touch.

Roy walks his palms down Ed's back, pushing himself up as he does so, straightening up until he can settle back on his calves. He rubs soothing circles into Ed's lower back as he waits for him to relax, the both of them trembling in their combined effort to be patient through the adjustment.

The oil on Ed's back glistens where the sun hits it, and after several deep breaths his grip on the comforter starts to loosen. His eyes crack open, and when he shoots Roy a look over his shoulder, he has the audacity to look annoyed. “Had enough of a breather yet?”

Roy strokes a hand down his spine and over an ass cheek. “Just enjoying my view.”

“I’d enjoy mine a lot more if you’d- _ohhh_ ,” Ed groans as Roy circles his hips, drawing that single word out into a croon.

“Better?” Roy asks, the first taut, burning slide leaving him a little bit breathless.

“Don’t stop you- _fuck_ ,” Ed hisses when Roy snaps his hips forward this time. “That’s right,” he breathes, wiggling a bit to get his knees underneath him, lifting his ass a little higher. “Keep going, just like that.”

Roy keeps going, just like that, and buries a hand in Ed's hair. It elicits a full-body shiver from him.

“Do the- thing,” Ed says, understandably a little incoherent between the smoke and sex and whatever he’d eaten that’s surely kicking in by now, and it’s fortunate Roy has him so well figured out he knows exactly what he wants.

He tightens his grip in Ed’s hair and Ed makes a noise that sounds like perfect torture as Roy uses that leverage to pull his head to the side. Roy leans over Ed's shoulder, lips barely an inch from his ear, and with the steady grind of his hips against Ed's ass, starts to tell him all of the things he can never bring himself to say when they’re outside of this, things like how exquisite Ed is (when he’s taking Roy’s cock), how lovely his hair is (when it’s wrapped around Roy’s fingers and clenched in his fist), that Roy will never tire of his voice (and all of the incredible sounds he can make with it).

As if encouraged by the praise, Ed rewards the next forceful snap of Roy's hips with a wail that seems to surprise even him, and he buries his face in the sheets. He's prone to covering his own mouth regardless of whether or not they have the house to themselves, though it does prompt Roy to wonder if Ling was serious about the headphones.

If he's perfectly honest though, he does not care.

He pulls Ed's face up by his hair, and Ed scrambles to cover his mouth with his hand. Roy catches it and pins the offending wrist to the bed, and Ed's resulting whine is muffled by the tight press of his lips.

“Let me hear you,” Roy tells him, and Ed makes a noise that sounds like an embarrassed negative. It's a fucking tragedy that the only time he voluntarily keeps his mouth shut is during sex. "Please," Roy tries again.

Ed grabs at the hand Roy is using to pin his wrist down, and Roy half expects to fight him for it until Ed says, "I want this."

Intrigued by his forthrightness, and in the interest of encouraging that kind of honesty, Roy shifts his weight back to his knees and lets Ed have his hand. Ed brings it up to cover his own mouth, and when he presses it there firmly so Roy undoubtedly gets the point, Roy instantly wants to ruin him. So after he warns Ed to tap out if he needs to, he does.

He braces his knees against the bed, one hand over Ed's mouth and the other still in his hair, and starts to fuck him hard and fast. He uses his dual leverage to tilt Ed's head back, bowing his glistening back obscenely as he takes what Roy gives him like he was never made to do anything else. Ed's muffled cries fall in rhythm with the pounding of Roy's hips, reverberating through his palm and crackling up his arm and across his skin like electricity.

Roy still can't believe that he gets to have this; not just Ed in this way, but Ed's trust, a prickly, fragile thing he wasn't sure he'd ever earn.

Roy's hand only falls away from Ed's mouth so he can revel in Ed's agonized litany of "right there right there _right there"_ while he relentlessly hits that perfect angle, and when Ed comes with a hand still in his hair, making a mess of the bed beneath - when he shivers and shakes and sobs Roy's name - he yanks Roy right down with him.

They stay pressed close as they catch their breath, a mad tangle of limbs and joints and hair, Ed's back and Roy's chest heaving against one another. Roy gently eases his fingers out of Ed's hair, and then they carefully pull themselves apart, point by sweaty point, until Roy is able to slide his hips free and hobble to his feet. If it had been anyone else he would have immediately reclaimed his sweater from the floor to cover himself. With Ed, though, this vulnerability barely makes a blip on his radar.

Ed lays right down in the wet spot, and he doesn’t move from this gloriously fucked-out display while Roy discards the condom and grabs a washcloth from the ensuite. He still barely opens his eyes when Roy prods him to roll over so he can clean up his stomach and thighs, and Roy decides the sheets will have to wait until Ed's feeling a little more cooperative. And conscious.

Roy collects his sweater from the floor and tucks it over Ed, then has a seat next to him and starts to gingerly pick through all of the knots he'd brought about in his long hair. It's just his fingers working and the sunlight flickering through the blinds and their steady, unmatched breathing, but there isn't much Roy would trade it for. After he's made the best of the hair Ed isn't laying on, Roy hesitates, and in a moment of sex and/or weed induced weakness, he uses his thumb to rub at the spot where Ed's eyebrows are knit in a frown.

Ed's eyes flicker open. He looks so tired it makes Roy feel a little guilty for not just continuing to play with his hair, or at the very least leaving him the fuck alone so he could get some rest.

Roy fumbles a moment, then settles on asking, “Are you going to stay?”

Ed, who has fucked and run enough times that it isn't unreasonable for Roy to ask, scoffs like it is. "Like I'm going anywhere after an edible and a bowl and an orgasm,” he mumbles, though the combination of the aforementioned trio greatly dampens any snark in his tone.

“I’m sorry, was the massage not satisfactory enough to be noteworthy?”

“It’s lumped in with the orgasm,” Ed tells him. Roy must look wounded, because Ed rolls his eyes and accusingly says, “Don’t act like that wasn’t your endgame.”

“It really wasn’t,” Roy says honestly. “I just wanted to help you feel better.” The soft seriousness in his voice makes Ed blush and look away. To remedy that, Roy wiggles a hand underneath him and grabs his ass. “But it was definitely a perk.”

“Whatever,” Ed grouches, pulling Roy's sweater tighter around himself and pushing Roy's arm away with his metal foot, which Roy grabs and holds at the ankle.

“Do you want me to finish your leg?” he asks.

Ed shrugs, and lowers his foot when Roy lets it go. “Maybe later? I'm feeling alright now. And I’m pretty sure I heard something about pizza while my brain was in fight or flight.”

“I do believe it was mentioned during a moment that definitely wasn’t unnecessarily long and incredibly awkward.”

Ed laughs. His smile makes Roy feel stupid in the best sort of way. “Do you think I even need to put clothes on?” he asks. “Ling’s already seen my ass once today. Might as well make it an even two.”

Roy brushes Ed's bangs back even though he knows they won’t stay that way. He has the strongest urge to kiss him, but he doesn’t. “You stay here,” he says. “I’ll get it.”

He moves to get up and find his pants, but Ed stops him when he reaches out and grabs his hand. His grin makes Roy’s rib cage feel too tight.

“You’re the fucking best,” he says, and Roy would be happy to just stand there and bask in the look of utter adoration Ed is currently holding him in for the rest of the day. Ed doesn’t fuck around at the offer of food though, so Roy expects to immediately be let go and sent toward the door, and he’s a little confused when that doesn’t happen.

Ed tugs on his hand, pulling him closer, then pulls him down by the arm, and Roy isn’t sure if this counts as a kiss within the constraints of sex, but he isn’t going to _not_ enjoy it, so he doesn’t let it worry him yet. He just sinks in, sweet deep and honey slow, and lets it say the kind of things he can’t properly put into words.

They part long enough to breathe and blink at one another, and then Ed laughs. “Did’ya get it? When I called you _smoking_ hot?”

He's absolutely baked and it's rather charming, but Roy's heart is hammering so hard against the confines of his chest it's the only thing he can think about. “Clever,” he says breathlessly, and feeling brave, leans in to kiss Ed again.

He still doesn’t know what, exactly, this is. The rules and boundaries of it are fluid, always changing, giving and taking like an intangible osmotic force. It doesn't have a name, and he doesn't know how long he'll have it.

But that’s okay. He’s just happy it's his.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to visit me over on [tumblr](https://butbythegrace.tumblr.com/).


End file.
